Obsession

The word on the street in the DC-environs where I live, is that President Trump has slapped a moratorium on entry to the USA by Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, Animists, Hindus, Moonies, Rosicrucians, Hari-krishnas, Shintoists, and adherents of any other religions with odd-sounding names. Reporters, pundits, politicians, “educators,” clergy, students, professional agitators and stoned advocates for free pot are shouting from the housetops that “this is not who we are,” and vowing to fight Mr. Trump’s “Hitlerian” discrimination against religion to the last man, woman or whatever. Dark whispers are even circulating that Trump really wanted to set up “detainee camps” for Muslims and others, but was restrained by “moderates” on his staff (assuming that there are any).

OK, OK – enough of that tongue-in-cheek stuff, although the overheated accusations of “Hitlerian” religious discrimination are all too true. All seriousness aside, though, Mr. Trump did not bar followers of Islam (or of any other religion). His order:

Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;

Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely;

Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days by citizens of seven countries (i.e., Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen);

Barred green card holders from those countries from re-entering the United States, although the administration said exemptions could be granted.

Indeed, just finding this straightforward summary of Mr. Trump’s order took some digging, as most media organs are obsessed with the “religious discrimination” story-line. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) made a big media splash (so to speak) by publicly “weeping” over Mr. Trump’s “mean-spirited” order, while vowing to fight it with his last breath. (Somehow, he and multitudes of like mind overlooked the fact that the seven nations named in the order were originally cited as “terrorism-prone” by the Obama administration two years ago.)

The media uproar was described by Powerline.com columnist John Hinderaker as “All hysteria, all the time.” Mr. Hinderaker said, “The Left’s ability to go bonkers in lockstep is impressive. You have to give them credit for message-discipline, if nothing else. On the Left, these days, craziness isn’t just permitted; it is required.”

Even former President Barack Obama – who had promised to give Mr. Trump space to implement his program – couldn’t resist getting into the act by weighing in through his spokesman, Kevin Lewis. In a carefully worded statement which did not mention Mr. Trump, the White House, or “Muslims,” Mr. Lewis said, “The President (i.e., Obama) fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.” (Who knew he meant only a week of “space?”)

During the first week of his presidency, Mr. Trump kept opponents and the media (is that redundant?) off balance by issuing a blizzard of executive orders, the net effect of which was “collective diversion.” With so many issued, almost simultaneously, it became impossible for the media and politicians to subject any one order to the full “Mau-Mau” treatment without letting others slide by. But the immigration order was issued on Friday afternoon. Its timing was a “procedural” error, as it gave politicians and the media the entire weekend to misrepresent the order and denounce its “religious discrimination.”

Massive demonstrations at airports were quickly mobilized to protest Mr. Trump’s “un-American” order. A Delta Airlines computer-problem also delayed thousands of passengers. The careful vetting and blocking of Syrian refugees and other persons from the seven named countries actually denied entry to only about 100 individuals. But the confluence of the demonstrations, the computer-glitch, and the new entry-regulations allowed media to proclaim “chaos” at airports across the country. It was a uniform theme in all of Big Media on Monday morning. Mr. Trump’s controversial order got all the blame for the disruptions, with scant mention of the computer-problem and the demonstrations – except to praise the demonstrators’ “stand for American values.”

Leftist media and politicians have had great sport denouncing Mr. Trump for his discriminatory action – which some tried mightily to twist into “racism.” But a large, less vocal part of the citizenry didn’t see it that way. A Rasmussen Reports survey released on Monday showed 57% of likely voters favoring a temporary ban on refugees from the seven countries until the federal government can effectively screen out potential terrorists. Only 33% of respondents opposed the ban.

It’s not hard to see that those shouting loudest about this entirely sensible step to protect the country from imported terrorists are a group who don’t expect to be endangered or inconvenienced by “workplace violence” or “lone-wolf crimes” (or whatever else Mr. Obama chose to call the terrorist acts that occured in the country). That happens only to “other people” our exalted grandees like to tell each other. They stake out the high ground on these matters and avoid soiling their hands with the messy details of protecting the American people. Confiscating citizens’ firearms is their stock answer to terrorism. But actually barring people from countries that incubate and export violence? Intolerable! Absolutely un-American!

To pols on both sides of the aisle, however, the truly outrageous aspect of Mr. Trump’s orders – six issued since his inauguration – is their clear fulfillment of promises he made during his campaign. Evidently he regarded those promises as serious commitments to the people who put him in office, and he immediately went to work on them. His political opponents and media-critics consider this incredible. It simply can’t be true. He must be motivated by his own business-interests or racism. A politician actually making good on promises made to the voters who supported him? Unbelievable! (As Balu the bear famously said, “Boy-oh-boy, now I’ve seen everything!”)

An Investor’s Business Daily editorial said, “All the actions Trump has taken so far are ones he promised months ago to tackle immediately, yet they are all treated as shocking developments. It is hard to see how Trump’s critics are helping their cause when they react to everything Trump does as if it were a world-ending catastrophe.”

The dirty secret underlying all this uproar – world according to me – is that Mr. Trump’s opponents fear his actions on three counts. First, they fear that his faithfulness to his supporters, if it continues, will make him unbeatable for a second term. Stone by stone he is building a base so solid that it might permanently alter the political alignment of the country. Dems know that those states Mr. Trump won by promising citizens what they longed to see done will be the very devil to win back with their vacuous bromides about diversity, inclusion, cradle-to-grave welfare, anything-goes sexuality, gender-neutral pottés, and free pot for all. If Mr. Trump continues in the pattern of his first week, he might become the nightmare from which Democrats never wake up.

Second, Democrats fear that actual control of our borders will cut off their flow of likely new voters. Having estranged a large segment of their once reliably Democratic voters by pandering to ethnic minorities, women, abortionistas, gender-confused persons, deviant sex champions, and advocates for unisex restrooms, they count on building a new support base with the “huddled masses, yearning to breathe free” who have heretofore been streaming in. If that spigot gets turned off, they know they’ll be in big trouble.

But Democrats’ third great fear is the darkest of all. They fear that Mr. Trump might actually stop terrorist violence by learning how to spot the varlets hiding among the legal and illegal immigrants who have been pouring across our borders. Seeing high-profile terrorist acts continue in the USA is, I suggest, Democrats’ hole-card for wrecking Mr. Trump’s presidency. More killings and bombings would (hopefully) convince voters that his “hard-line” stance on immigrants is both morally and tactically wrong. By definition, Mr. Trump will be a failed, one-term president if he cannot stop terrorists from entering the country and doing violent things. Ergo, it logically follows that his enemies will do everything possible to prevent him from accomplishing this crucial task.

I admit that it’s atrocious even to think that some Americans might traitorously desire Mr. Trump’s failure so much that they would actually want harm to befall our citizens in order to achieve that political end. I earnestly hope it’s not true, but I’ll need to hear and see some encouraging words and deeds coming from certain political and media figures to persuade me otherwise.

The “all hysteria, all the time” shtick has been entertaining, but some people who ought to know better need to sober up, put on their big-boy pants, and get to work helping Mr. Trump and his government find and destroy the villains who want to hurt our people and ruin our country. This is serious business, and we’ve got to get serious about it. We are at war. The time for tom-foolery is long past.

“For if the trumpet give an uncertainsound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” (I Corinthians 14:8)